A recent study has been looking at identifying musical instruments depicted in Zimbabwean rock art.
Rock art is found on almost every continent, Antarctica being the exception for obvious reasons. These enigmatic images have been painted, scratched, etched, outlined, sketched and drawn for thousands of years.
Zimbabwean rock art is exceptional and the Matobo Hills in the south of the country are on the World Heritage List because of their importance for African heritage. In this study, images created by San people were sorted into categories according to how they make sound: idiophones (in which the whole instrument makes the noise, for example, a wood block), membranophones that make sound by the vibration of a stretched membrane, for example, a drum, chordophones that use strings to make sound, for example, guitars and harps, and aerophones that vibrate the air to make a sound, for example, trumpets. The images were then checked to ensure that the instruments depicted really were musical instruments. The body postures of the figures playing the instruments helped to clarify that they were, in fact, really so.
This research project threw up some interesting regional variations in the instruments and their playing. Gender, occasion and performance have all come under scrutiny and there is plenty of work still to be done in order to understand the societies through which this art was created.
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